Settling in France: Student Life in Nancy

Life and activities in this town
Nancy
LCT Year 1
Published

December 15, 2021

Locations in Nancy

Place Stanislas

This is the main square in the city. The city center stretches out for six blocks around this square. This is a main gathering point for parades, dancing circles, tourists, musicians, etc.

From June to September there is a light show at Place Stanislas every night!

This is the one I got to see:

La Pépinière

This is the biggest park in Nancy. It is where everyone goes during the weekend for a picnic or playing sports.

  • The Nancy Jazz Pulsations festival takes place here.

  • Dancing groups gather near the anfitheater in La Pepinière.

  • It has a small zoo inside.

Other landmarks and parks

  • Place Carnot is an urban park close to the IDMC and CROUS Resto Leopold
  • The Botanical Garden in Nancy is far from the rest of the city, but it is amazing. Given its size, is worth several visits. And it is free for students to enter!
  • There is a park on the shore of the Meurthe river where there are many picnic tables and the view is amazing.
  • There are several palaces (chateaux) around Nancy if you’re into architecture.
  • Nancy is known for having many arches and gates around the city. Expect to come across them all the time while walking in the city center.
  • Nancy is also known for its art nouveau, find it around the city!

Student Life

Surprisingly, Nancy does not have much student life, even though a big size of its population is made up by students.

Bars

I’ll only mention some bars that are withing a student budget.

  • The main bar in Nancy is the McCarthy irish pub. This is where a lot of the Erasmus and International students organize events. Every Wednesday night there is some event for international students (game night, trivia, or just hanging out), and every Thursday night there is a language exchange event. Sometimes they transmit football matches or have karaoke. It’s one of the few bars open on Sunday. In the basement there are pool tables.

  • The Litte Delirium Bar has some good deals for Happy Hour and space for bigger groups. It is one of the few affordable bars with a terrace.

  • L’Ambassy is a cozy bar where you can take your laptop to work. It gets crowded during the night.

  • My personal favorite: La Faille is a medieval-themed bar with a lot of board games (Catan, Dixit, UNO, Risk, Codenames, etc) and video games for groups (Mario Kart, Smash Bros, etc). Geeky and cozy.

Sports and dancing

  • The main place to look for is the SUAPS (the sports service from de University of Lorraine).
    • Their services include: fitness, swimming, group sports, solo dancing, couple dancing, hiking, yoga, etc.
    • Check out their catalogue.
    • All the activities are free for students.
    • Most activities take place in or around Campus Lettres
    • There are several activities which require an inscription. However, if you show up without a registration and there are some spots left empty, teachers usually will let you in.
    • Be quick! The spots fill up really quickly!
  • Around the city, there are several Maisons des Jeunes et de la Culture (MJC - Youth and Culture centers) which have tons of activities.
    • Here, you will have to pay. However, their facilities are better and less crowded. Nevertheless, they’re aimed to young people, so their prices are affordable.
    • Unlike the SUAPS, they do include music in their activities. You can learn to play an instrument or join an orchestra.
    • They also have language classes (French, Spanish, English, Turkish, Arabic, ….)
    • They only work in French (but in my experience they were really patient!)
    • There are three MJCs near the Residence Batelière:
    • Additionally, they also have art expositions and galleries.
  • There are several dancing groups that gather in Pepinière. Ask them for more information.

Gyms and working out

  • There are some public gyms at La Pepinière and in some other parks, but there are none close to Residence Batelière
  • There is a gym close to Residence Batelière, but people have told me that it is really basic and their opening hours are weird.
  • Most people join Basic-Fit. There are a couple around the city, but none are close to Residence Batelière.

Museums, Music and culture

Museums are free for students!

  • The Museum of Fine Arts has a nice collection from medieval to contemporary times.

  • The Museum-Aquarium is for those interested in Natural History.

  • The Botanical Garden has a gallery with real plant life from all over the world. Find it here.

  • L’autre Canal is the main venue for concerts in Nancy. For all music genres! Find it here

  • The Salle Poirel is where many symphonic orchestas play. All their events have big discounts for students. Find it here

  • The Lorraine Opera has a big opera season. It is a little more fancy, but the price is somewhat accessible. Find it here

  • The Théâtre de la Manufacture host small plays and musicals, usually done by students. It is in the same block as the IDMC!

  • The Mediathèque Manufacture is a digital library also in the same block as the IDMC. It has video games and studying space.

  • The Regional Conservatory is also in the same block as the IDMC. Sometimes their students offer concerts for free.

  • Sometimes there are orchestas which reserve churches for playing symphonies. They don’t advertise much, but pay attention around the music venues to know about these events. It’s a peculiar type of experience.

  • And I’m sure there are some other places!

Clubs

The French care about their dressing code for clubs. Dress up! If they don’t like your outfit (flip-flops, shorts, yoga pants, etc…), they will not let you in.

Unfortunately, there is not much variety regarding the music played in the clubs in Nancy. It is always a combination of these genres: - Old and current Pop music in English - Current Pop music in French - French rap - Techno

And that’s it.

The most popular student clubs in Nancy are:

Additionally, there was only one place which played Latin American music (Bachata, salsa, reggaeton, funki). That’s where most of the Latin American community hangs out.

The schedule and location changed every couple of months, so the best way to know about it is to ask latin americans.

Clothing and beauty

Clothing and beauty products in France range from somewhat cheap to really expensive.

Again, most shops are in the center.

  • Nancy has one main mall, the Saint Sebastien mall where one can find Sephora, C&A, etc…

  • Zara

  • H & M

  • French clothing stores are really expensive.

Thrifting: - Around the city center there are some thrift shops, I’ve found L’armorie to be really good. - Emmaus is a huge second hand store. I recommend checking their clothing section.

The beauty service industry is pretty expensive in France.

Spas, doing one’s nails, hair dressers, depilation … anything that involves another person doing physical work on your body will be really expensive. Several friends had to learn to do this stuff on their own.

Other activities

The Univeristy of Lorraine has a Maison de l’etudiant (student house) in Campus Lettres - It is a place where students can go chill and hang out - They have several student clubs: - theater - poetry - DJs - skateboarding - debate - etc

  • All of them are free …. and only in French.

Go to Metz, or better, Strassbourg

The fact that one can list most of the activities to do in Nancy shows that the offer in this city is really small (it’s ok for one year). If you are looking for bigger or more diverse events, you will have to take a train elsewhere.

  • Metz is smaller than Nancy but somehow has more varied activities than Nancy
  • All big events in the region (concerts, fests, parades, etc…) will be in Strassbourg
  • If you really like to have many options and have enough money, check out Paris!

Weather and Climate

I come from the southern hemisphere and relatively close to the Equator, so I had to get used to have a cold December and a warm July.

  • In Winter it only snows for two to three weeks, but most of the times the temperature is barely above zero, around 1 and 7 degrees. Get good winter clothing! You can buy it in Decathlon.

    • The worst part of winter is that days get way shorter. Get ready to have sunrise around 10AM sunset arount 4PM.
    • That means that you will start your lectures while it is night outside and finish while it is night outside again. Very depressing.
    • If you’re not used to the lack of sunlight, talk to a doctor about getting vitamin D.

  • Spring and Autumn are very rainy, so get your umbrella! Temperature is around 10 to 15 degrees.

  • Summer can get really hot. While I was there, there was a big heat wave and for several weeks the temperature was over 30 degrees.

    • All the parks in Nancy turned yellow during those weeks.

Cheats for Nancy

Getting good food ingredients

I you, like me, come from a region in the world where it is common to have fresh fruits, the food has taste, and see eating as more than just “getting fuel to work”, then Nancy is going to be disappointing.

However, the communities of foreigners have managed to solve this issue, if you know where to go.

East Asian food markets

  • EXO Est is the biggest East Asian store in Nancy.
  • Saigon store is a little further away from the city center and smaller, but it has better prices.
  • Chez 86 is, according to several chinese students I met, the best chinese restaurant in Nancy. And it’s close to the Residence Batelière!

Fresh fruits and spices

On the weekends there is an Arab street market in front of the T2 Station Cèdre Bleu.

This is where I got most of my fruits, because it was the only place I found where spices and fruits with real taste were affordable. They have great prices (for France) and variety.

They only set shop on Sundays from 9AM to 1PM. Around noon it gets really crowded. During the summer, they also work on Saturdays.

You can also try your luck at the international section of the biggest Auchan in Nancy:

It is at the end of the T2 bus line.

Ordering stuff online

The reception of residence Batelière does not like to accept packages on the mail, only letters. There have been cases where they have refused to take a package and it was returned to the store.

So, it is more convenient to select a pickup point when buying online (Amazon, Vinted, ebay, etc…).

Nancy during big holidays

As you will learn soon enough, Nancy has very few activities and options to offer. This is why a lot of the people look for stuff to do elsewhere. During big holidays, this is strongly felt.

The big holidays are: - the University breaks in the middle of the semester - the two weeks around Christmas and New Year - the Summer vacations

During these holidays, expect all European students (both local French and foreign on Erasmus) to travel elsewhere. Nancy kind of becomes like a ghost town. My best advice is to plan to travel with friends if you can afford it, because the city will be mostly empty.

Good luck!

As I have said before, the workload of the master programme in Nancy is very intense, so, find your way to balance extracurricular activities and don’t burnout!